Glass House (Key Seat)

Sunshine Coast Hinterland

Marginal LNP 0.9%

MP

Andrew Powell (LNP) since the 2009 election. Shadow Minister for Transport and Main Roads and Shadow Minister for Local Government.

Profile

Glass House is a mixed rural-urban electorate north of Caboolture and covers most of the inland parts of the southern Sunshine Coast. Inland from Caboolture it includes Upper Caboolture, Mount Mee and Woodford. Further north it includes Elimbah, Beerburrum, Glass House Mountains, Peachester, Mooloolah, Eudlo, Montville, Maleny and Conondale. Covers 1,768 square kilometres. (Map)

Redistribution

There are changes to the boundaries with nearly all surrounding electorates, the most important being the transfer of Palmwoods and Woombye to Nicklin, and parts of Caboolture north of the D'Aguilar Highway to Pumicestone. The electorate gains Mooloolah Valley from Caloundra and areas west of Morayfield from Pine Rivers and Morayfield. Taken together these cut the LNP margin from 1.4% to an estimated 0.9%.

Background

The first incarnation of Glass House had its initial electoral contest in 1986 and was won by the National Party. It was one of many seats to fall to Labor on the election of the Goss government in 1989. It disappeared from the state's electoral map on the drawing of one-vote one-value electoral boundaries ahead of the 1992 election.

Re-created by the redistribution ahead of the 2001 election, Glass House took in much of the abolished electorate of Caboolture, a seat that had been won by One Nation in 1998. However, the electoral climate in 2001 was very different, and while the combined first preference vote of the four competing conservative candidates was more than 50%, over half of preferences exhausted and Labor's Carolyn Male was easily elected from a first preference vote of only 40.6%. Male was re-elected in both 2004 and 2006 after increasing her first preference vote to more than 48%.

Another redistribution ahead of the 2009 election changed the political complexion of Glass House by removing parts of Caboolture. Male moved to successfully contest Pine Rivers while Glass House was won by the LNP's Andrew Powell. Powell pushed his margin above 20% at the 2012 election after a swing of 14.6%, but came close to defeat in 2015 when a savage turn of the electoral pendulum delivered a 19% swing back to Labor.

Past Election Results

Year

Winning Party

1986

NAT

1989

ALP

1992

not contested

1995

not contested

1998

not contested

2001

ALP

2004

ALP

2006

ALP

2009

LNP

2012

LNP

2015

LNP

Coloured tab indicates seat won by a party forming government

Polling

A Galaxy poll in the Courier-Mail on 11 November reported first preferences of LNP 33%, Labor 27%, One Nation 22%, Greens 16%. After preferences the result was LNP 50% Labor 50%, a swing of about 1% towards Labor.

Changing Boundaries

2017 Ballot Paper (5 Candidates)

Candidate Name

Party

BELL-HENSELIN, Tracey

Pauline Hanson's One Nation

POWELL, Andrew

LNP

MUREAU, Sue

HAMPSTEAD, Brent

Australian Labor Party

WEBER, Sue

The Greens

Candidates

Tracey Bell-Henselin

Pauline Hanson's One Nation

Bell-Henselin's career started in business, sales and marketing with a Diploma in Business and Marketplace. She founded Women of Worth and Identity, a foundation she has directed since 2014. She works in helping young people pass employment/skillset barriers and expand their employment capabilities. She previously worked in child services/protection where she led QLD for Destiny Rescue, and she has worked internationally in rescuing children trapped in sex trafficking. Bell-Henselin contested the local seat of Fisher at the 2016 Federal election.

Andrew Powell

LNP

Aged 44, Powell's early childhood years were a moveable feast before his family settled in the local area at Burpengary in time for Powell to complete his schooling at Grace Lutheran College in Redcliffe. He went to the University of Queensland where he completed bachelors degrees in Science (Geographical Sciences and Physics) and Arts (Modern History and Russian). Powell went on to work with Department of Defence in Canberra before returning to Queensland where he worked for the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet and the Department of Child Safety. He was Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection in the Newman government 2012-15, became Shadow Minister for Energy and Water Supply after the 2015 defeat, then Shadow Minister for Transport and Main Roads and Shadow Minister for Local Government following the election of Tim Nicholls as LNP Leader.

Sue Mureau

Brent Hampstead

Australian Labor Party

50 year-old Hampstead grew up in Logan City but now lives in Maleny where his family has ties to the local dairy industries dating back to the early 1900s. He runs an entertainment consultancy business with his wife. He has worked in the entertainment industry since leaving school, with some of the highlights being editor of Time Off magazine, a publicist at Channel 7 and State Manager for Sony. Hampstead was the Labor candidate who came close to winning this seat at the 2015 election.

Sue Weber

The Greens

Weber worked for over 25 years as a barrister in criminal, family and commercial law, breaking gender barriers along the way. She trained as a mediator at Bond University and went on to become a Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner. When not working she runs a small farm on her property with rescued farm animals. She was the Greens candidate for Petrie at the 2016 Federal election.